Sect Leader

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

In the wake of an attack by a divine beast, the world blinked and transported Jessica Kim from Denver and her life as an accountant into the Sect of Coldsteel, replacing the now dead leadership. Can she get the support together to build the school back up and running while providing support to the refugees left by the divine beast? Will she be able to use her knowledge of the scientific method to improve the sects standing with local clans?

Sect Leader is being prepared for Kindle/KU. Thanks for all of the support!

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2022
Author: Weavervale

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.0/ 5.0
Followers: 678
Views: 197,863

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

The IrregularRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's a fun story and I rather enjoyed it, it's not been to complicated so far in a way that I've always preferred. It has some formatting problems for a few chapters but I'm assured that these will most likely be fixed. For now I'd recommend it, for people who want to read something lighter.
HiIamSilverRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let's get this out of the way first. This has a lot of spelling errors, mixed up pronouns, even missing or cut off sentences. Enough to sometimes take you out of the experience.
That said, it's a delightful romp full of precious, cute, characters. It's not the longest fic on here, but it accomplishes what it set out to do and doesn't overstay its welcome. There is something to be said for leaving the reader wanting more instead of padding out a story with filler.
The humour is on point, the relationships are cute and go just the way you expect while still being a delightful surprise, the setting is interesting and cool.
Highly recommended read.
(You might think it strange that I give this a 5 star review when starting out talking about the technical writing being broken. My justification is that it is my wholehearted recommendation that you read this, and the score system is broken. I think this is good+deserves a read=5 stars)
(Should also address the other elephant in the room. The story does get somewhat pushy with the rationalism, a philosophical movement that has spawned some amount of scary elitism, having the main character subscribe to the philosophy and pushing it in some author notes, and shouting out at least one of the preachiest works.
The fact that I've had bad experiences with followers of the philosophy in the past and don't subscribe to it myself doesn't detract (much) from my enjoyment of the story, and isn't cause to dismiss it entirely. It gets a lot less preachy about it in later chapters too. :) )
AnehaliaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall I think the author has a fun premise and characters are interesting, but this story needs some polish to help bring it to its full potential. I do recommend reading it, but with the caveat that if feels like this is an early draft.
Style: Sometimes there were moments of genius beautiful writing, and other times there was constant word repition or sentences that I struggled to parse. The parsing issues are more on grammar, so that is where I took off the most stars. The style itself (word repition and choice of description) does seem to get better as the story continues.
Grammar: This is where the story is at its weakest. Some sentences were worded in such a way that I struggled to figure out what information the sentence was trying to convey.
Story: Cool story and I'm interested to see where it goes.
Character: I debated between a 4.5 and a 5 here. I think the characters are interesting, but some of the weirdest sentences happened to be around character thought process, which made it hard to understand what exactly the main character's motivations were. I think, with a clean up of grammar and sentence structure that this score would go up.
Consistent MilkRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The story starts with sort of a basic isekai setup and explores the various logistical things a 'sect leader' is supposed to handle. I personally haven't read stories with such a premise, and it did manage to interest me with its content. The biggest issue for me was the writing style which needs some polishing to bring out the overall distinct story that lies underneath.
Style: The writing style is felt simplistic and was one of the weaker aspects of the story for me. In some parts, I was confused by whether the character was thinking or speaking out loud - which is not something that I usually encounter in web fiction. Because most tend to use italics or ' ' to separate thoughts and dialogues. Apart from that, I thought that were other issues with how the characters were portrayed and scenes were composed. But not being an experienced writer myself I couldn't really figure out exactly where it was going wrong. Of course, these are things that can be fixed with editing.
Story: Definitely different than other Xianxia novels, because it is not exactly about cultivation but more about managing a sect. So more of a 'kingdom building' story, which is not something I have seen up to now, so it definitely interests me.
Grammar: There were grammatical inconsistencies here and there but nothing too major. Some errors broke my immersion though.
Character: The characters also didn't feel well developed to me and none showed any characteristics that made them memorable. That doesn't mean the characters were badly written, it's just that they weren't anything special. The protagonist and her situation are interesting but many of her reactions felt rushed and naive.
NatarajaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
- Style & Grammar
This is well written, no grammar nor style issues. The layout is good which makes the text pleasant to read. However, there are some things that are not described clearly enough which make what happens difficult to understand, sometimes questions are asked that have already been answered (why are they deferential to her? She can't accept that unlike the rest).
Take note that English is not my native language, so I may have missed some things...
- Story
Classic Isekai but the MC become the sect leader right away which is an interesting take, even if the power up is a bit much for my taste, not to mention the voice in her head that help her. The sect in question is rather pitiful which makes it possible to predict that the MC will have to deploy a lot of ingenuity to make it survive and grow. It certainly makes you want to read the rest! I would have liked to know more about Jessica's plans to renovate the sect, and the potential social difficulties in implementing them..
It's funny to see the martial art belt system used in a fantasy system :)
- Character
Jessica accepts the situation a bit quickly, which is an usual problem in Isekai that most readers will not notice. She also easily accepts her responsibilities as a leader (women are usually not very confident in this role, is she used to leading?), as well as the precarious situation they are in. Most people would panic in this situation. It's not very realistic. Novices also accept very (too) easily to follow a person who is summoned so brutally.
There are really good convos though, like when she ask if they need time to process their feeling, this could have been more developed.
RydeniusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Real men suck the cold out of the air and transform it into qi—making the air around them warmer for others in the process is just a side effect.
The 'summoned to be a sect leader after a disaster struck the sect' is something new that I hadn’t seen before and piqued my interest. Overall the story feels a bit like a franchise/sect management game, an approach which has a lot of potential and has been a fun read thus far.
Story 4.5:
An accountant is summoned from another world to become the new sect leader and the last remaining (injured/dying) elder sacrifices himself to bestow his cultivation core upon her, immediately making her strong enough to be the new elder. Resulting in a strong MC that has a lot to learn. Thanks to her Korean heritage and background story, Jessica (the MC) is not without martial arts training, but for the cultivation she has to rely on novels she's read and a young but intelectual member of the sect (An Yong) to guide her way.
As the remaining elder, Jessica's task is to rebuild the ColdSteel sect, by recruiting new members and helping develop the approximately 200 or so remaning students her sect still has. All while worrying whether the divine beast that caused the disaster would return to finishe the job.
Characters 4.0:
Between the intellectual An Yong, the sandal throwing aunties, to the ambitious Grace and others, there is a varied and interesting cast of supporting characters that are relatable and likable. The MC is a mixed bag however, tending toward preachy and idealistic at times—something the author lets her get away with.
I was also particularly disappointed the way a certain arrogant young master’s temperament makes a 180 degree change after certain events. Though justification is given for the change toward the MC, the sudden consideration given toward lower ranked sect members feels a bit out of character if he normally kills people for the slightest of accidental missteps.
Style 4.0:
The style is light and easy to read for
Eva_EverquillRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I really enjoyed the fast-paced nature of the story! From the very beginning, it grabs your attention with its energy and keeps you hooked as the action unfolds quickly. The protagonist is definitely a character to remember. You’ll have to read it to understand what I mean—she’s unique, and her quirks add an interesting dynamic to the plot. I found myself chuckling along the way as her actions and witty remarks made the experience even more enjoyable.
The story is engaging, though there were a few grammatical issues that occasionally took me out of the experience. These moments were minor, but they did briefly interrupt the flow of the story. That said, I noticed the author is open to feedback and willing to address these, which is a great sign of their commitment to improvement. It's always refreshing when an author is receptive to constructive criticism, and I’m sure these small issues will be worked out in future updates.
Overall, this is a solid, light read that provides plenty of entertainment. It’s not overly complex, but it doesn’t need to be. It does exactly what it’s meant to do—offering a fun, quick read with a quirky, memorable protagonist. It was a real page-turner for me as I grew more curious about how Jessica would handle things in her own unique style. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, easy read!
Chaos JesterRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
What we have here is a story that has an amazing foundation and concept, but could use a bit of polishing and detail.
Weaver writes good stories. I'm not shocked at that at all. This one is included in that generalization. But parts feel choppy or rushed.
A little more segue, a little more detail, a little more emotional feedback and it would be another perfect weavervale story. No doubt about that.
Inkwell RabbitRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Ok, so as I learned from the author, this story is for the "Sun Went Out Propmt Contest", so he was working with an 8k to 40k length story.
Also a note ahead of time, this would be my first cultivation story I read so I am going in as a blind reader, that said, let's get on with the review:
Grammar: I would like to begin with grammar. The grammar in this story is numerous in places, but very clean in others. I don't know whatg the deadline would be for the contest, but I feel a once over or a proof-reader could have helped out quite a bit. My main complaint would be the use of the word "cold" in the first chapter, for-- besides the use of coldsteel-- it was used 9 times. It most definitely was noticable enough to pull me out of the story a few times, but to be fair, this type of problem doesn't come up in the other 4 chapters.
Style: As this is a cultivation/ isekai story, I wish it would have gone into so more details of both. The world "cultivation" is thrown around a lot and I have no clue what it was refering too. I think it was meant to be a word for the magic system, but the magic system is barely explained. I think some more details in that aspect would have gone a long way for me.
The same with details of Jessica's earth-life. We no extremely little about her other than she its edibles and she lives in Colorado. I think both are useless facts when dealing with being an accountant in medieval...um...china? Yeah, the world is never explained either, but apparently there are dragons. In fact nothing is really explained: Qi, the ranks, how Jessica was summored, why Jessica was summoned other than the fact she has math skills, nothing that I wanted explaination for was explained. Again, to be fair, between the time crunch of a deadline and the limit of words to be used, this is extremely excusable and I don't take it as a factor in the rank. As I said, this story has a lot of potential to go further than 40k words
Story: Speaking of explaination of cultivation, m
Evelyn AdelbergRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I’ll give points for the originality of the way the MC gets isekaid, I’ve never seen it before, and the transition between the real world and the murim world is very smooth.
There are some minor issues that do unfortunate add up and hamper the flow of the story. First, there are quite a lot of repetitions and tense changes. These aren’t as frequent in the later chapters, but are very noticeable at the start. Also, the author sometimes forgets to close the “ ” at the end of a line of dialogue, so it makes it hard to separate between dialogue and action.
However, these issues get less frequent as the story goes on, so I believe a second edit could get rid of it entirely.
This following point could very well be a stylistic choice but this story reads like a translation, due to sentence structure and certain word choices. The dialogue is also very un-organic. I have seen all of this in Chinese translations, but the thing is, it could very well be intentional. And I’m not talking about terms like “elder sister” and the whole sect system; that is to be expected on the genre.
To me, a European reader, this story I hard to get into because of the prose but I think those readers who consume way more Chinese Xianxia than I do will not have this issue.